Lekan Bashua

AI-powered talent agency/venture community focused on supporting under-networked founders outside of traditional venture ecosystems. - We vouch for founders at the earliest stages; then help them through content, connections & capital. - For Investors, Capital Providers, Advisors, Vendors we help you meet relevant founders.

- Early Stage Investments in Tech Enabled Startups & Scalable Products-As-A-Service - AI / SAAS / Defense Tech / Aging / Autism / Workflow Software / Local Services

- Agentic Computing & Conversational AI: Defined the product vision and led the end-to-end prototyping and delivery of a conversational, multimodal AI agent designed to replace the legacy internal quoting platform. Impact: Reimagined seller interaction, enabling faster deal completion resulting in a reduction in average transaction cycle time. - AI-Powered Process Automation: Led a cross-functional team (FTEs & TVCs) to leverage proprietary LLM models and RAG architectures to extract unstructured data from existing contracts. Impact: Created a new set of data rubrics that automated the creation of future deals and contracts, cutting manual review time by XX% (with an eventual goal of XX%) resulting in an accelerating time-to-market. - Platform Monetization & Scale: Defined new pricing primitives and complex deal support mechanisms for Google Cloud Marketplace Transact Platform & Systems, requiring cross functional senior level stakeholder alignment. Impact: Instrumental in the team that delivered a stable transaction platform, scaling transaction volume and helping the platform cross the $X Billion annual run rate mark. - AI Internal Evangelism: Served as an internal thought leader and educator, creating and leading formal & informal training sessions for Product, Design, and Engineering colleagues on practical Gen-AI applications (e.g., Rapid PRD-to-Product Prototyping), fostering organization-wide AI literacy to increase the rate of Gen-AI adoption.

Tailgating with Geniuses uncovers the unknown how’s and why’s that drive the people behind the things we love. First season guests include: CEO’s, presidents and CMO’s from household-name businesses like Netflix, Redbox, Gatorade, Uber, The Coca-Cola Company, Trader Joes, Anytime Fitness and more; “New York Times” bestselling authors; filmmakers and Academy Award-winning Pixar animators; sports superstars-turned entrepreneurs; academic trailblazers; an epic adventurer; and heads of web properties and start-ups that are changing the world as we know it.

- Worked with CEO, COO & CPO to Build the Product Vision, Strategy & Roadmap - Led Digital Transformation Projects with Product, Sales, Ops & Cust. Success - Built a Research Practice w/ Quant & Qual Methods to Derive Client & Market Insights - Managed a team of Designers, Researchers, UX Practitioners & Strategists

- Built the Roadmap for a reimagined process to build Meetings & Workplace locations - Worked with local operations teams to ensure adherence to product standards - Built a digital experience layer linking to building systems & hospitality services

- Led FlexSpace from bootstrapped company to significant revenue - Secured a vote of confidence with an investment from Comcast Corporation - Conceived-of, designed, built, launched and funded the initial product - Recruited & led a team of talented developers and designers to grow FlexSpace - Spearheaded the full product lifecycle from napkin sketch, to launch and growth

I help other founders get out of their head and get their first product out of the door. I help you identify your customer, their problems, how you can solve it, then build an early product.

SPACEHQ.IO: The Market Network & Professional Community for Office/Operations/Facility Managers to Research & Implement Workplace Projects seamlessly on a single Platform.

Candor Labs was an Idea Incubation & Technology Consulting company. We focused on using technology to help reinvent and modernize older, established industries. Industries where the amazing promise of SAAS, Cloud, Mobile and Collaborative Consumption have yet to play a major impact. We agree with Mark Andreessen: Software is Eating the World.

- Devised a winning digital strategy that helped deliver millions in annual revenue - Built the business case, recruited the team and secured necessary funding - Launched and scaled a technology enabled online design & space planning service - Innovated by releasing the first iPad/Mobile/VR Apps at Steelcase - Built a nationwide network of on-demand showrooms at coworking space partners

- Improved profitability and grew revenue significantly - Used market research & data analysis to gain conviction to cull necessary product - Led cross functional teams to ensure successful product development and launches - Successfully launched small enhancements, while building the long term roadmap

- Managed 24 distributors, 12 state territory, Combined sales of $$ YoY - Successfully planned and executed a new channel growth strategy - Uncovered latent demand by adding a new class of dealers/distributors - Created an effective distributor training and development regimen

- Healthcare Sales Thought Leader - Managed 8 Dealers, 5 States, South East Territory - $$-$$ million in sales per year - Completed the Steelcase Escalate Sales Training Program (Consultative Sales Training) - Completed the Steelcase PACE Program (For Promising New Career Entrants)